


something to hold me down

by theroadverytravelled



Category: Ranma 1/2
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Comfort No Hurt, F/M, Literal Sleeping Together, Sleep Deprivation, okay maybe not getting enough sleep is a kind of hurt?? that's as far as it gets, unintended innuendo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 05:00:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29754438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theroadverytravelled/pseuds/theroadverytravelled
Summary: Akane can't sleep and it's getting on her last nerve. The only thing that seems to help is the person who is the expert on getting on all of her nerves.
Relationships: Saotome Ranma/Tendou Akane
Comments: 1
Kudos: 24





	something to hold me down

She had been having restless nights; tossing and turning and kicking her blankets off in the night, sleep so light she’s mostly awake. Maybe the worst part — other than the fact she was turning into a zombie in daylight — was that she couldn’t figure out what the problem was. She falls asleep easily enough, but then it’s as if her body doesn’t get the memo and doesn’t stop moving. 

Sleep deprivation makes her  _even_ crankier than usual, and Ranma walks right into her bad mood when he comes into her room asking to borrow a pencil. Why does that idiot  _never_ have his own stationery, and why is he always borrowing hers, usually without even  _asking_ for it, usually just taking whatever he sees, because he never stops to  _think_ , never stops to consider, never  _thinks_ in general, never thinks ahead and prepare and maybe just stop by a store one day to get himself his own stupid  _pencil_ to do his own stupid  _homework_ and she’s so  _tired_ oh my God she’s too tired to do this with the pencils and the asking and — 

He presses the fingers of his right hand together, pushes it towards her like a a blunt spade. She feels the barest press of his fingertips on her chest just before she feels her mattress and pillow meet the back of her body. Before she can even open her mouth to protest, Ranma’s stupidly huge hand circles around her ankle and locks, a firm grip that shocks her to stillness. He stands above her, body slightly bent, his face blank as he looks down. 

“You need a nap, Akane. Your eyebags got you lookin’ like Pops.” 

He moves so fast — she hates how fast he moves! — because then he’s up on the foot of the bed, settling her legs over his with his back leaned against the wall. There’s suddenly a pencil right behind his ear, papers he’s spreading out over the tops of her calves. Wait, is he copying  _her_ homework?! 

“Sleep, tomboy.” She feels it again, the warmth and weight of his left hand on her ankle. A few hesitant pats, and then he just rests it there, and suddenly Akane feels a wave of drowsiness wash over her, the sheets of her bed turning impossibly soft, her head sinking, sinking into her pillow, everything darkening around the edges until there’s nothing but the enclosed darkness behind her eyes, time passing around her as she sleeps. 

It’s Kasumi’s voice calling everyone to dinner that she wakes up to, but it’s the pang she feels when she realises she’s alone in her room that gets her fully awake. Her brain is groggy and sluggish, and her body feels like someone’s poured concrete in it as she pulls herself out of bed and drags herself to the bathroom to wash her face. But through the fog, she feels energy pulsing from her ankle, a lightness in her bones there that make her feel fragile, like she’ll float away. 

Ranma’s stuffing his face with one hand while fending off Genma with the other when Akane joins her family for dinner late. She’s not taken two bites before both men hurriedly thank Kasumi and rush off to the dojo to test out some new martial arts technique. 

Her brain still feels like it’s moving through mud, and she’s quiet through Kasumi’s gently concerned inquiries and Nabiki’s cutting jabs. She can’t figure out the feeling of floating and the fogginess of her brain, and she thinks well, maybe she’ll just go back to sleep at least, catch up on what she’s missed. 

Except the minute she’s on her bed, under the covers, bathed and in her pajamas, her every nerve is buzzing, her limbs vibrating and her focus is suddenly sharp. Every sound is magnified — which means every time she turns, or shifts, or moves a little finger, the rustling feels like a roaring drone. She sits up, frustrated. She arranges and rearranges her pillows and blankets, tries to recreate the conditions of this afternoon by bunching her blanket around her ankles and calves, but it does nothing but overheat her feet. 

And so the next day begins much the same as the day before, but worse. She’s dead on her feet through breakfast, through school, through whatever shenanigans happen after school — she vaguely remembers Mousse? Or was that just a regular duck? — and when she gets home she drags herself up to her room and flops face first onto the great site of her current frustrations: her bed. 

The groan she unleashes rattles the house. She knows this because that’s what Ranma blares at her from her door, although she can’t see him because she’s turned away towards the wall and she doesn’t want to move. 

“What’s your problem, tomboy, thought that was an earthquake!” 

She groans again, even louder this time, in response. Suddenly she feels his quick hands poking at her back in different spots. 

“Are you sick? Should I call Kasumi? Is this some kind of un-cute disease?” 

“Leave me alone, Ranma! I’m so ti—” she interrupts herself with a great giant yawn, and it makes her feel even more miserable. 

“Still not sleeping, ne? What’re you getting up to at night, tomboy? Writin’ in your diary or some other loser thing?” 

She lifts her head to finally send a scorching glare at him out a the corner of her eye. “ _You’re_ the loser, jerk! Get out of my room, what are you even — ooof!” 

Ranma. 

_Sits_ . 

On. Her. 

It forces her back down to the mattress, and she flails her arms and legs to try and shake him off, but he’s as immoveable as a rock and she’s so angry at him but she can also feel the same feeling as the day before, like the tide coming in and erasing footprints in the sand. The drowsiness is sudden and potent, her body going lax under the weight of him. 

“Seriously,  _what_ is your problem, Akane? Why aren’t you sleeping — and why do you gotta fight me all the time?” Her eyelids are already drooping as she goes still under him, but something takes a final chance to flare at the petulant grumble in his voice. 

“Was just coming to check on ya…. Akane? Akane?” 

She misses dinner entirely that night. Kasumi’s cleaning up in the kitchen alone by the time she can drag her groggy self downstairs, and she gets a light scolding that’s mostly Kasumi patting at her forehead to see if she has a fever, telling her she was so impossible to wake up they’d nearly called Dr Tofu to the house but Ranma had convinced them Akane only needed rest. 

“Was he…where was Ranma when he said this?” 

“Eating dinner, of course. You were out cold, Akane! Are you sure you’re alright? Should we get some medicine?” 

Kasumi tries to convince her to eat something, leftovers from the family meal, but Akane rebuffs her, telling her older sister all she needs is a bath and backing away quick enough before Kasumi asks any more questions. 

The steam and hot water does clear her head, and a clear head unfortunately gives her the chance to consider the past few days — the lack of sleep, but then the sudden, heavy drowsiness, the grogginess when she wakes, and…and Ranma. She lifts her leg up from under the water, looks at her ankle as if there’s something to be seen there. She remembers still the feeling of his hand around it, how grounding it was. The weight of it more than just a mere hand. And then again today, with his whole body pressing down on hers. Annoying but…it was like a sedative. All her restlessness, leached out. 

The thought of another sleepless night tossing and turning in her bed makes her almost want to cry, and she sinks further down into the hot water of the bath, wonders if she can just stay here for the night, if maybe she’ll shrivel into a dried prune or if her body will freeze to sleep once the water goes cold. 

No! She won’t have it. She won’t be defeated by this. She’s a Tendo, after all. She can’t just give up! She can’t not fight this — whatever this is! 

She gets up out of the bath with gusto, wrapping her towel around herself and stomping upstairs to her room. The house is quiet, Kasumi retired for the night and the darkness of Nabiki’s room through the slight crack in the door telling Akane her middle sister has snuck off somewhere doing goodness knows what as usual. But she’s not about to tell anyone, because she’s got something she needs to try that’ll go better with Nabiki’s absence. She hears her father’s snores as she passes his room, slides quietly into her own to dry off and put on her pajamas. Before she slides back out, she pauses by her alarm clock, before picking it up to set it to ring a half hour earlier than normal. 

Then finally she’s tiptoeing down the hallway to Genma and Ranma’s room, her heart pounding so loud she’s sure it’s shaking the floor, the walls, the very roof above them. Her fingers shake and falter at the sliding door, but she grits her teeth almost hard enough to crack her own jaw and opens it just a sliver. The large shadowy mound at the end of the room is Genma in his panda form — his preferred sleeping arrangement — but she would’ve guessed that with her eyes closed with how loud his snores are. How does Ranma sleep through this?!

Speaking of Ranma…

She gets inside the room and closes the door quickly behind her, so as not to let the outside light in, and she tries her hardest to breathe quietly. Not that it matters — for a pair of allegedly master martial artists, they show no signs of sensing any intrusions. Ranma is asleep closer to the door, sprawled out like a starfish, half covered by his blanket, mouth wide open in a soundless snore. Akane drops to her knees and shuffles over to him, one eye on the rise and fall of Genma’s big round form. 

“Psst! Ranma. Ranma!” 

Nothing. Rolling her eyes, Akane pokes at his shoulder, slowly increasing the pressure until she’s jabbing at it. “Ranma!” She hisses through her teeth. “Wake up!” 

His eyes are still closed but his hand shoots out to grab her wrist, and her reflexes kick in as her palm comes down to cover his mouth, pressing her face closer to his so that he sees her eyes as soon as he opens his own, and she says the only thing she thinks might shut him up — 

“You have to help me, please! But be quiet!” 

His brows furrow deeply at that, his eyes suddenly stormy and alert. He springs upwards, alert and light on his feet, his hand still around her wrist as he frantically scans the room. 

“What is it? Akane!” 

She twists her wrist so that she can grab his hand instead and pull him out of the room, lest they finally break through Genma’s stupor, although if anything his snores have gotten even louder. 

“You need help? What’s going on? Is everything okay?!” 

“Shh! Just hold on!” 

She doesn’t stop, doesn’t dare look around until they’re both in her room and the door is closed and locked. She puts a hand out behind her to hush him as she strains her ears just to listen to the sounds of the house. 

Everything is as it was. With a sigh of relief, she turns around, and suddenly her relief flees at the sight of Ranma seething and twitching in front of her. 

“Tell me what’s going on, tomboy — where’s the danger?” 

She sees his fists clench and unclench, his jawline rigid, and she rolls his eyes. And he accused _her_ _o_ f always picking fights! But anyway. She recalls the words she could come up with earlier in the bath. 

“Ranma, you know how I haven’t been able to sleep?” Warily he nods, still tensed and ready to attack. “Well, I think you’re the only one who can help me sleep. I know it sounds strange. But, well…” 

By slight degrees she can see his shoulders relaxing. He quirks an eyebrow at her, a quizzical expression on his face. His silence is worse than him running his mouth and Akane feels her face heat up, a familiar boiling starting up in her stomach overriding the courage and determination that had got her here. 

She shakes her head, as if to shake the thoughts loose, stomps over to her bed and sits down, crossing her arms tightly over her chest, pointing her chin up imperiously at him. 

“The other day you — you pushed me on the bed, and you said I…said I needed a nap!” 

The tension is gone from him entirely, and the smirk on his face seems to transfer it to her body instead. “You did, ‘kane! You’ve been grouchier than usual, which is saying something — like a monster becoming an even worse mo—” 

“Ranma, shut up!” She hisses, her whisper rising in volume. “You pushed me to the bed and then you held my ankle, and I fell asleep! And then earlier you —”

His eyebrows shoot up, but his smirk becomes mocking, almost gleeful. 

“You want me to sit on you again?!” 

“Idiot! No! I —” Her words suddenly fade in her mouth, and she can’t stand looking at him anymore. How did she think this would work? When has Ranma ever just _listened_ to her? 

She falls back to the bed and claps her hands to her face to muffle the deep groan that comes out of her. This won’t work! Ranma won’t help, and so she won’t sleep  _again_ and she’ll be tired for the rest of her life, and she won’t even know why, and…

Callused fingers circle around her wrist ever so lightly. The bed dips slightly beside her. 

“”kane…” The petulant, morose tone in Ranma’s low voice is familiar. She hears it in the rare moments when he lets slip that he feels bad about something. Akane lowers her hands a little, just enough to see him sitting next to her, face turned resolutely away to the far wall of her room. 

“Get into bed properly. I’ll…I’ll wait till you fall asleep, then I’ll go.” 

The surprise of his acquiescence hits her like cold water, but she quickly scrambles to do as he says, clambering under her covers, careful to keep her arms out over the blankets. She settles in the side of the bed furthest from the outer edge. Furthest from him, although that…defeats the purpose. A little bit. But Ranma merely gets up and seats himself closer, still maintaining distance but close enough to reach over and circle his fingers around her wrist again. She looks down at their hands, then up at him, finds him looking back at her. 

“This…it’s nothing bad. You’re just helping me with…with a wellness issue.” 

“I’m not gonna do nothin’, if that’s what you’re implying! I’m no pervert!”

“I know you’re not! You’re getting a mallet to the face if you do anything, anyway!” 

They glare at each other for a few beats before his expression shifts into something a bit more curious, although still wary. 

“Is this working?” 

In the bluster of their bickering, Akane had nearly forgotten what this was all about. She takes a deep breath, shifting to burrow further into her pillows, tilting her head back as she closes her eyes. She exhales. 

The drowsiness she expects doesn’t come. 

She refocuses — pushes her attention to the warmth of Ranma’s hand on her skin, tries to feel the calluses she knows are on his fingers. But it doesn’t do anything. It’s certainly not like it was this afternoon, or yesterday. She cracks one eye open, sees him staring — he knows it’s not working either. 

“I think…I think it’s too light. Your…er, your hand.” 

Ranma blanches, awkwardness spiking higher between them, but he clamps his hand down around her wrist. 

“Ow!” 

“Argh!” 

He lets go of her as if he’s been burned. The boiling happens in her stomach again, and again she has to breathe through the insult of that reaction. 

“Not so hard! It’s more about…weight. I think. Not about pressure. It’s the…” She struggles to articulate it, tries to think about the sensations of the last two times, how she felt pulled under immediately. “The heaviness, just something…um.” 

“Something what?” 

She looks up at the ceiling, suddenly willing for lightning to strike her and end this all. 

The words come out through gritted teeth. “Something to hold me down.” 

The silence thunders in her ears, competing with her thundering heart again. She wants to melt into the mattress and become air, become dust. She wants to just blow away like leaves in the wind. 

And then Ranma flops onto the bed, belly down, his face utterly sunken into the pillow next to her. She’s grateful she’s got a twin bed, even as she blushes at the feeling of his body heat by her shoulder. She doesn’t dare look at him, and he’s definitely not looking at her with his whole face hidden like that — idiot, he might suffocate — but she can see his arm lifting between them, and then…

Does the world go slow motion or is it just him moving very carefully? 

He drapes his arm right across her stomach, over the blanket. Tentative and light before he lets his body settle and relax, the full weight of his arm pressing across her. 

The drowsiness comes like it’s been beckoned, Akane inhales deeply and her eyes close to the pleasant sensation of actual sleepiness flooding her brain, like light switches going off one by one. 

“Thank you Ranma, you can —” Her yawns are as loud as they’ve ever been, “— can go when…after…” 

She’s deeply asleep before she can finish her sentence. 

When she wakes up the first time, it’s still dark all around her. The front of her body, her face, is pressed against something solid but not unyielding, and that comforting heaviness surrounds her entirely, almost like a cocoon. When she breathes in, she smells the clean scent of skin, of light sweat and a little musk, something woody or earthy, like being outside. And when she feels the steady exhale of breaths across the top of her head, in her hair, she realises a few different things at once

She’s not groggy. In fact she’s very comfortable and relaxed, her limbs pleasantly heavy with sleep but she doesn’t feel like she did before — almost uncontrollably sleepy, nearly drugged. This feels…normal. 

The other thing is. Well. Ranma didn’t leave. Ranma is the solid thing she’s pressed against, and the comforting heaviness around her is one of his arms pillowing her head and the other wrapped securely around her shoulders and back, pulling and keeping her close, his chest against her cheek rising and falling with deep, even breaths. Her own arms are pressed close between their bodies, her hands making little loose fists. She wonders if she protested against Ranma in her sleep — or if she was the one who rolled to him first, her body curling into herself as well as into his. 

She loosens her fingers even further, spreads them against the hard planes of his chest. The mere contact is comforting enough, another grounding point. But the faint feel of his heartbeat underneath her hand makes her snuggle in closer to him. His breathing stays even, and the drowsiness comes for Akane again. She lets her eyes close, inhaling as deeply as she can, relishing the utter relaxation of both body and mind, and she lets herself hide a smile into Ranma’s chest, in the utter quiet of the night that belongs entirely to her. 

When she wakes up the second time, she’s up again before Ranma, and she’s up even earlier than her alarm, although she can sense it won’t be long before it goes off. Slowly, she rolls away from Ranma to her back, staring up at the ceiling again. His limbs are lax, releasing her easily, but she keeps his arm on her stomach, ineffectually patting his hand. 

Her mind is the clearest it’s been in days, maybe even weeks. She feels…light. But not like she’ll float away, not like she wants to become air. She feels the aliveness of her body, and of her beating heart, and of her breath, and she’s excited to use all those things today. To exist, to live, to be in the world. What difference peace makes after weeks of anger and frustration. And sleep deprivation. 

She can sense he’s about to wake a few seconds before he actually does, and she manages to quietly and gently move his arm right before he does. She’s there to catch his open eyes, to be the first thing he sees, and she’s there with light fingers on  _his_ wrist when she sees the panic flash across his face. 

“It’s okay. Ranma, really. You must have just fallen asleep too.” 

He shrinks away from her as quickly as he does anything, rolling onto his back and sitting up straight, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as he yawns himself awake. He chances a quick glance back at her. 

“So uh, did you…?” 

There’s a melancholy in the separation, and she can feel the contours of her first awakening in the deep of the night fading quickly into memory, into mere flashes of feeling. Soon she might doubt it happened at all. 

“Yeah. I slept really well. Thanks to…um. I mean…thanks.” 

“Yeah. No problem.” His voice is gruff, stilted, and he’s got his elbows settled on his raised knees — a casual pose that’s anything but. She can just about guess the gears are starting to crank up and race in his head — leave immediately and offend her, or stay and offend her? 

“You should go soon. Get back to your room before Genma gets up. Uh, if you want.” 

He scratches the back of his head. 

“Uh.” 

And then he’s up and away, turning back to her only once he’s at the door, a frown marring his features. It somehow makes her pull her covers up higher on her body, as if they hadn’t been pressed together all night. The silence stretches, and she’s not sure who should speak first but it’s his gruff, stilted voice that speaks again. 

“Can’t really remember the last time I slept that deeply. I barely remember falling asleep, just uh…just being in y— the bed, then it was morning.” 

“Same,” She lies. She remembers more than that, but he doesn’t need to know. “I feel much better. Refreshed.” 

“Right, yeah. Refreshed.” 

They stare at each other. Time keeps stretching.

“Well,” Ranma starts, and then he’s opening the door and closing it again behind him, leaving Akane alone in her room. 

Her head falls back against her pillows, and she’s shaking her head even as she feels a helpless smile push against her cheeks. 

Idiot. 


End file.
